14 DAY TRIAL // Yoga is a practice reputed to improve your physical and spiritual condition if you perform exercises periodically. However, it can be hard to get to all your classes, and sometimes there just aren't any in your neighborhood.
Then, there's the issue of travel. If you go on a vacation or business trip, you won't be able to attend the classes held by your Yogi.
That's where the SmartMat comes in. The subject of one of the newest Indiegogo crowd-funding campaigns, it will walk you through your routines just fine.
Well, that's not quite true. The mat doesn't actually have what it takes to communicate with you in any way, not directly at least. Fortunately, the same cannot be said about phones.
How the SmartMat works
The mat is equipped with pressure sensors and will need you to calibrate it via a smartphone app installed (and freely downloaded) on your Bluetooth-enabled phone or tablet. Both iOS and Android apps are available.
The app will need you to input your age, height, gender and weight, then will ask you to lie down on the mat so that the sensors can get the exact length measurements of your arms, legs and torso. That information will later be used to indicate how to move during the classes you download to the app.
During routines, the app will use verbal and on-screen visual cues to guide you through the positions, and it will even tell you if your balance or posture is off.
The baseline will be updated over time, depending on how flexible and stronger you get. The SmartMat Marketplace holds all the classes you're likely to need, or at least the ones that should carry you through the trip or whatever else is keeping you away from your usual haunts.
As for the mat itself, it has a detachable plastic ledge. Even if it had been unremovable though, you would still have been able to roll it up and take it with you, since the ledge attaches to one of the narrow edges, so it doesn't interfere. In that ledge are some of the electronics, including the USB-chargeable battery (six hours life, one hour recharge time).
Availability
The SmartMat is being crowd-funded, as we said before, so it's not available yet. Still, a pledge of $297 / €234 should get you one, a pretty low price compared to the eventual retail price of $447 / €353.
